


i'm the ghost in the back of your head

by emilybrontay



Category: Degrassi: Next Class
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Future Fic, Lola is a famous YouTuber and Miles is a famous playwright and they run into each other in a bar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 23:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11839128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilybrontay/pseuds/emilybrontay
Summary: "There are several elephants in the room right now, as there usually is when two people with as much history as Miles and Lola are reunited."Title from Foals' Spanish Sahara





	i'm the ghost in the back of your head

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hannahsviolets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannahsviolets/gifts).



> THIS IS FOR HANNAH I LOVE YOU BISH I AIN'T NEVER GONNA STOP LOVING YOU BISH  
> The characterizations for this are probably way off but I had fun! Also - idk if they have taxi ranks in Toronto I'm British lol. But if they don't, then like, how else are you supposed to get a taxi?

She knows she’s been stood up when the girl behind the bar asks her if she’s okay for the third time, and the guy – Sam, his name is, he works for Revlon and they met at a work thing – leaves her second _dude where r u_ on read. Lola takes three long, slow breaths, and orders a double vodka and coke. She’s been stood up before, that’s fine, its par for the course right? Like, it’s _fine_. It’s just that this has been such a _long_ week and she was really looking forward to being showered in compliments by a cute boy who was paying for her drinks. It didn’t even have to go anywhere – God knows none of her other dates ever do. She toys with her phone, peeling the silicon case back and then letting it snap back into place, and thinks about texting Shay. Maybe, Lola thinks, Shay’d set her up with that cute friend of Tiny’s from work. What was his name? Jared or something. Jared wasn’t a very sexy name. She considers what it would sound like, moaned in the throes of passion, and shudders. She sighs, shoves her phone back in her handbag, and orders another drink.

 _God_ , she thinks, _there’s gotta be more than this, right? There has to be. I’m twenty seven years old_.

“Excuse me,” comes a deep voice behind her. She sighs again, assuming – as one does when she’s a YouTube sensation with five million followers and her own makeup line – that it’s a fan. She doesn’t look behind her.

“Now’s not a great time, sweetie,” she says slowly, “I’ve just been stood up. But if you look on my site, you’ll-”

“Sorry,” the voice says again, and _holy shit, she knows that voice!_ She turns, slowly, and there he is. Miles freaking Hollingsworth. She nearly bursts into tears.

“ _Miles_!” she cries, and jumps off the stool – she still only comes up to his shoulders.

“Hi,” he says smiling, and they hug in that awkward we-went-to-high-school way, which disappoints her a little because she lost her damn _virginity_ to him.

“I haven’t seen you since-”

“The twins’ twenty first,” he nods, and she clambers back up onto the stool in what she hopes is an elegant and adult way.

“Like, six years ago?! That’s so crazy, how has it been that long?”

“Well,” he chuckles, and her skin _literally feels like it’s on fire_ , maybe she’s had too much to drink, maybe it’s because she’s not had sex in a while, whatever it is, it’s happening, “I’ve been busy,” he says, and she nods, “and so have you, I hear!”

He’s not wrong. She has been busy.

“I am kind of a superstar now,” she grins, “Did Frankie tell you I have my own line now? It’s Canada only at the moment, but we’re looking at introducing it in European stores soon!”

“Actually,” he looks a little embarrassed, and she shuffles in her seat wondering what she said wrong, “Frankie didn’t tell me – I mean, she did, obviously, but she’s not where I heard it first. I…well, I follow your channel. Actually, you’re kind of the only channel I follow.”

Lola, mid-sip of vodka and coke, nearly chokes.

“ _You what_?!”

He laughs, not unkindly, and waits until she catches her breath.

“I follow your channel,” he says again, “It’s good, you should be really proud of it.”

She feels a little light headed, which is probably the vodka but could equally be because Miles is smiling at her in the way that makes her feel like she’s aglow.

“Thank you,” she replies warmly, “And – and you! Your Olivier nomination! That’s so cool! And _so_ well deserved. Frankie said it was amazing, the play.”

He grins, a half-grin that says even after all this time, he’s still not used to getting compliments.

“Did she tell you what it was about?” he asks, voice so quiet she has to ask him to repeat himself over the noise of the bar. He leans in so she can hear him. His breath is on her neck, and she shivers.

She shakes her head. “No, she just said it was beautiful. Hey, do you want a drink or something? I feel so awkward drinking alone.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Well, I don’t drink anymore.”

She’s glad to hear that. “Right, of course. Do you want like, a water?”

He nods. “That would be lovely.”

She laughs. “Who says _lovely_?”

“It’s a Brit thing,” he chuckles in that low way he has, “I’ve been there ten years this September.”

“So how long are you back in Toronto?” she asks, and then turns to the concerned barmaid, “could we get a tap water please? He’s a cheap date.”

She glances back at Miles, who either didn’t hear her comment or doesn’t mind.

“Not long,” he says, “A week here, a couple of days in Ottawa to see Hunter.”

Lola nods knowingly. It’s been so long, but Miles is still Miles. He’d cross oceans for the twins.

“I’m actually…I’m here for a wedding,” he confesses.

“What? In this bar?”

He laughs properly, and she’s reminded _again_ of what it was like. That weird, kind of terrible but kind of wonderful time when he was all she could think about. It’s so strange, she thinks, so much of who she is as a person – what shaped her, the building blocks of her adulthood – are tied up in him. And here they are, sat drinking in a moderately nice bar near their old school, like he didn’t write a play about her. Like she didn’t have an abortion.

“No,” he says, “it’s on Saturday. You should come, actually – it’s Zoe and Rasha, from Degrassi?”

Lola straight up squeals. She might be currently fighting her apparently unresolved attraction to her best friend’s brother who took her virginity, but she also loves weddings, _especially_ if those weddings involve lesbian high school sweethearts who are now a political power couple.

“Oh Em Gee,” she bounces up and down on the stool, “Are you _serious?_ That’s _so cute_!”

“It really is,” he agrees, “almost sickeningly so.”

She squeals again, and then thinks about what he said. “You really don’t have a date?!”

He shakes his head. “When they sent out the invites, I was seeing someone so I put I wanted a plus one, but it – y’know, it fizzled out, whatever, so now it’s just me.”

She chews her lip. She _does_ love weddings, and she _doesn’t_ have any plans this weekend. And it _would_ make an excellent vlog. “Are you sure? It wouldn’t be weird at all?”

“No, it wouldn’t,” he assures her, “high school was a long time ago, y’know?”

There are several elephants in the room right now, as there usually is when two people with as much history as Miles and Lola are reunited. She thinks about not addressing any of them, but _screw it,_ she’s an adult!

“Won’t…. _Tristan_ ,” God, she can’t believe she just _whispered_ that, like she’s sixteen or something, “be there?”

Miles laughs really loudly, which frightens the waitress hovering behind them and makes Lola feel much more at ease. “Yes, Tristan will be there – with his _husband_. Like I said, high school was a long time ago!”

“It was,” she laughs too, “and sometimes it feels like it was like, yesterday. Like I’m still that girl. Not to get fake deep or anything.”

He nods earnestly. “Yeah, I totally know what you mean.”

He scratches the back of his neck in the way that guys do when they’re nervous – or maybe just Miles does it, she’s only ever thought it was cute when Miles did it – and clears his throat. She braces herself for whatever’s coming. Maybe _he’s_ married. Or he’s got a kid. Or –

“It was about you,” he says finally, and she blinks rapidly, like she’s got mascara in her eye or somebody’s slapped her.

“What?”

“The play. The Olivier nomination. It was for a play I wrote about you.”

She doesn’t know what to say – what _can_ you say to that? “ _What_?”

“I thought Frankie had told you, but I guess she didn’t realise, or maybe she didn’t realise.” He’s not looking at her, and Lola can’t think properly. _You were my hope_ , he’d said.

“I mean,” finally, he catches her eye, “it wasn’t – it was about what happened, more than anything. Not the bus crash, or the coma, it’s just…ah, jeez, I wanted you to see it.”

“Well,” she says, and her voice shakes which is _so annoying_ , because how is this _happening_ , she is twenty freaking seven years old, “that would’ve been difficult seeing as it was on in London and I live in Toronto.”

“I know,” he shakes his head at himself, or maybe just the situation, she’s not sure, “I tried to get Frankie to bring you when she came over, but she said you had a work thing.”

Lola remembers. It was to be a girls’ trip, but then she had a huge meeting with a sponsor and a convention in New York, and Shay was worried about leaving the baby. So Frankie had gone with Hunter, and Lola had never seen Miles’ play.

She feels more than a little giddy.

“Can we like, step outside? Like for a second?” She clambers off her stool, and Miles offers a hand to help her down, which is sweet.

 

* * *

 

It is bitterly cold outside, and Lola wishes she’d worn another layer. She wraps her arms around herself, steps side to side in order to keep warm. The wind clears her head and brings things into perspective: Miles, beautiful, tragic Miles, wrote a play about her, but not really her, more about what happened to her when she was a teenager, and it has been nominated for an Olivier award. Oh, and he wants her to go to a wedding with him this weekend.

“You know,” she says, and tucks a lose strand of hair behind her ear, “I volunteer at this helpline. I answer phones for this charity that supports teenage girls who need abortions or who’ve just had abortions or whatever. It’s been really good for me.”

“That’s great,” Miles says really quietly, and she keeps talking.

“And I’m not mad – that you wrote a play about it – and I mean, I’ve never seen your play so how do I know it’s about that? It might not be, it might just be about, y’know, the relationship. So I’m not mad, I just-”

“I wrote it on the flight back to London after I saw you at the twins’ birthday,” he says, and she gasps involuntarily, “I mean, I wrote the first draft of it then. Seeing you, even after all that time – it was so _weird_ , I just kept thinking about how _weird_ it was, that we could mean so much and so little to each other at the same time. So I wrote it all down.”

“Right,” she hears herself say. God, it’s been a wild night.

“It went through editing, at school and later, in workshops and stuff. I’d put it down and write something else, produce something else, but the whole time it’d be there. It’s almost unrecognisable, to be completely honest with you, just the bare bones of it are about us. The characters aren’t even teenagers anymore, and they’re British, and – I’m sorry.”

She’s crying. Oh _shit_ , she’s really crying over Miles Hollingsworth at the grand old age of twenty seven. She kind of wants to stamp her foot.

“I want you to see it,” he says. She clears her throat.

“I’d like that,” she replies, because she would. A part of her thinks it’s unfair of him to co-opt her experience like that, to _imagine_ what she must’ve been feeling, because he’d never bothered to find out. But another, much larger part of her, thinks _Jesus, its Miles_. He wouldn’t write garbage about her, he couldn’t do that.

“Did you do your research?” she asks, sniffling a little. He nods gravely.

“As much as I could, without asking you, obviously.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She feels braver, somehow. Braver than she did at sixteen, braver than she was five minutes ago. Maybe tears really _did_ have healing powers. She gazes up at him.

“I was scared,” he admits. She nods, slowly.

She thinks about how strange it is that she feels the same. That they both feel the oddness of knowing what happened, of being the only two people in the world who _really_ knows what happened, and having to speak to each other like they’re acquaintances. Maybe some people can do it easily, maybe she just feels things too strongly.

“I agree, by the way,” she says, since they’re in the business of getting things out in the open now, “that it’s weird. Like, so much of who I am, what I believe in – it comes from that experience, it comes from you. And I see you in a bar or at a party or whatever and I just make small talk, and I hate it but I don’t know what else to do.”

“We meant something to each other,” Miles says, impossibly softly, “we still do.”

It really is too cold to be standing outside for so long.

“D’you wanna share a cab home?” she asks, “I’ve kind of had enough of this evening. No offence.”

He laughs.

“I would love that.”

She gestures vaguely in the direction of the taxi rank, and they begin to wander towards it together, elbows bumping. She’s still shivering. He watches her, and she watches him watch her out of the corner of her eye. There is something like tenderness in his eyes.

“Jesus, Lola,” he says, “take my jacket.”

She laughs, because it feels like a freaking _teen movie_. She thinks of her sixteen year old self, and accepts Miles’ jacket. It smells like him. It’s weird, this whole situation is weird. But something in her heart whispers _it’s alright, it’s okay, this is moving forward,_ and so she tosses her hair back and looks him right in the eye.

“If you’re still offering,” she says steadily, “I would love to go to Zoe and Rasha’s wedding with you.”

“You would?” He looks a little stunned. She nods.

“Yeah, give me your number, text me the menu – you know I’m gluten free now? My dad was not happy, I can’t sample his cooking anymore. And like, bring a copy of the play with you, I really do want to read it.”

He grins. “I’ve actually, uh, got a copy of it here…”

She laughs, loudly. “Are you kidding?! You just carry copies of it with you?”

He laughs too, and she thinks about how warm the noise is. “In my defence,” he says, pulling it out of his bag, “it’s part of the reason I’m in town, we’re trying to shop it to theatres in Toronto. Y’know, a homecoming show.”

She nods, and takes the slim paperback book from him. “ _What I Did for Hope,_ ” she reads the title, “by Miles Hollingsworth. Cute.”

“You think so?”

“I mean, it’s about me, and I’m cute, so…”

The taxi pulls up and they scramble in, and Miles asks to get dropped off at the Four Seasons. Lola nearly screams.

“That’s _fancy_ ,” she says, in awe. He laughs.

“It’s my publishers, I – I wanted to stay with Frankie, or my mom, but they insisted. It makes me look more professional, apparently.”

Lola whistles. “ _I’ll say_.”

She looks at the book in her hand again. “This _must_ be good, if they’re putting you up at the Four Seasons. Let’s see…”

Miles winces. “God are you gonna read it here?”

Lola laughs. She’s been itching to read it ever since he mentioned it was about her – no, that’s a lie, she’d wanted to see it long before then, because Miles had made it and they were a part of each other. She opens the book – the first page is a dedication, and it reads like a punch in the throat.

_You were my hope._

She reads it aloud, and tries to sound calm.

“You sure about this?” he asks, “You don’t have to.”

She looks up at him. She can’t imagine another man meaning as much to her. She can’t imagine another man defining a time in her life like he did. She nods, clears her throat.

“I want to,” she says softly, “Okay. Here we go. Prologue: HOPE, a sweet young woman with brightly coloured hair, sits alone in her bedroom. She is waiting for something.”


End file.
